See Rosetta Let its Comet Tail Fly

October 7, 2014 1:13 AM

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Now in near-touching distance to its comet quarry, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency's comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta has managed to snap some stunning photos as the "Rubber Ducky" comet, sheds a comma from its vast solid mass.

A comet's comma is what most people call its 'tail' - bits of dust and melting ice shedding away from its solid nucleolus as it grows closer and closer to the heat of the Sun in a slow and spiraling orbit. These are the same bits of space debris that form stagnant clouds in space for the Earth to pa...